I had a backgound in bespoke software engineering for a high end manufacturing company and adapting and reverse engineering sofwtare out of necessity. At the same time I managed Linux Debian servers and IP networks before obtaining Cisco CCNA and CNNP certifications. I worked at a defence base and for a managed services provider before focusing solely on software projects.
I also have Oracle OCI cloud certifications and experience implementing Automation projects with a well know ISP. It was at the ISP that I really came to appreciate the desire of many businesses to limit the use of the cloud. I develop most projects offline with the intention of marking use of on-premise tools and servers. For AI projects this may mean using Ollama or Transformers plus Qdrant or ChromaDB.